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Web Structures Loops & Circuits: 2006-17.

24 November 2017

Earlier this week the focus was on the period between 1990 and 2005, the title, Chi, Internal/External an implicit reference to Wragg’s position as a Tai Chi Chuan master - and today we bring things right up to date with Web Structures Loops & Circuits: 2006-2009.

Cat 34: Singing Blood

oil on primed canvas

30 x 59.5cms

Signed, dated 2006-07 and titled verso

Cat 35: The Barn II

oil on canvas board

51 x 61cms

signed, dated 2009 and titled verso

The beauty of Gary Wragg’s body of work appreciated as a whole is that very definite themes, concerns and styles crop up over the decades - not repetitively so, but in a way which allows paintings separated by years to speak to, and complement, each other.

This is certainly the case with Singing Blood, which takes Wragg’s interest in the Greek Principles of Dynamic Diagonal that he so expertly explored in Cream Blue Pink Grid (1974) to a more fluid and dynamic conclusion. Wragg returned to “spiral, vertical, diagonal and horizontal movements” some 30 years on, but with a heightened, less structured approach.

Gary Wragg - Chi, Internal/External

22 November 2017

In the run up to Gary Wragg’s eagerly-awaited Still Soaring at 70 show, which opens tomorrow, we’ve been taking a look at a couple of the paintings from each of the four sections which make up this comprehensive survey of Wragg’s career.

Today the focus is on the period between 1990 and 2005, the title, Chi, Internal/External an implicit reference to Wragg’s position as a Tai Chi Chuan master.

Cat 26: Orange Square

oil on canvas board

56 x 45.5cms

signed, dated 1996 and titled verso

Cat 27: Palace Light

oil on linen canvas

40.5 x 51cms

signed, dated 1997 and titled verso

Gary Wragg has always been interested jn paintings that are, as he puts it, “on the brink of unbalance”. Certainly, the fluid, floating swooshes of indigo blue in his mid 1990s work Orange Square offer an vivid counterpoint to a small, very definite square in the right hand corner of this immersive canvas.

The effect is to anchor the entire piece in momentary stillness. An impressive achievement which can be read as mirroring the ying and yang tenets of Tai Chi Chuan - which values slow, graceful and continuous movements - that have become such a part of Wragg’s life.

And while Orange Square deals with the philosophical, Palace Light is a more direct response to a defining moment in British culture. Intrigued by the very public display of grief following Diana, Princess of Wales’ death in 1997, Wragg took his family to see the floral tributes outside Kensington Palace.

His artistic response was nuanced and abstract - and all the better for it. Seeing the way the polythene-wrapped flowers seemed to shimmer in the evening sunlight, Wragg returned home and started work on a canvas which hints at what he calls a “visually amazing, awe inspiring atmosphere and sight”.

Sobering, yet with dashes of colour and movement, Wragg expertly offers more of the much-valued stillness that had become his trademark.

Gary Wragg - Energy & Spiral Movement, 1976 - 1988

21 November 2017

Now we look at Energy & Spiral Movement: 1976-1988, a period during which the curator and critic Bryan Robertson said Wragg was “producing the most radiant, effulgent and original paintings of his generation.”

Cat 14: Carnival

acrylic, pastel, metallic paint and rhoplex on cotton duck

215.5 x 177 cms

Signed, dated 1977-8 and titled verso

Cat 18: Grey Painting

acrylic & mixed media on canvas

71 x 86.5cms

signed, dated 1983 and titled verso

Wragg has spent his entire career living and working at the heart of London’s art scene, studying, teaching, lecturing or exhibiting. He admits that the East End was a particular source of inspiration and its heady mix of architecture, culture and history is the trigger for Carnival.

The hard angles of broken panes of glass contrast brilliantly with the softness of the curved finger marks, and such complementary opposites became a regular trope in Wragg’s work. It’s in Carnival where we first witness the symbiotic approach he so appreciated in Matisse’s work given a dynamic new twist.

And yet Wragg didn’t always need the kind of obvious inspiration clearly apparent in Carnival. Take Grey Painting, which he affirms has “no subject”. Instead, this kinetic canvas is the result of direct painting which gradually and painstakingly builds up marks and layers.

The critic Bryan Robertson had already remarked that Wragg’s forceful and assured abstracts had a touch of Jackson Pollock about them, and it’s a comparison which bears weight in majestic style here.

Gary Wragg - Composure & Calm: 1966-1975

20 November 2017

In the run up to Gary Wragg’s eagerly-awaited Still Soaring at 70 show, which opens this Thursday at Paisnel Gallery, we’ll be taking a look at a couple of the paintings from each of the four sections which make up this comprehensive survey of Wragg’s career.

We start by travelling back to the epochal 1960s. Composure & Calm: 1966-1975 reveals an artist enjoying his burgeoning reputation as one of the country’s freshest and yet most unpredictable of talents, with two paintings in particular characterising his journey to the forefront of abstract British art.

Cat 3: Still Life with Black Curtain

acrylic on cotton duck

151 x 136cms, signed, titled and dated 1968 verso

Cat 7: Black Interior

acrylic on cotton duck

101.5 x 96.5cms, signed, dated 1968 and titled verso

Gary Wragg has always treasured Henri Matisse as a significant and constant inspiration, thanks to his unique combination of intense colour and harmonic composition. These traits are most obviously apparent in Wragg’s brilliant Still Life With Black Curtain, where he also makes reference to Matisse’s late domestic paintings, the Le Reve.

And yet from these constituent parts Wragg fashions something vibrantly new and dynamic, not least because he was also keen to try and “synthesise” his interest in Mayan temples’ pyramid structure into the work.

The result seems to sum up the atmosphere of London in the 1960s; heightened in colour and celebratory in essence, this is recognisably a still life but seen through a kaleidoscopic lens.

The kaleidoscopic theme continues in Black Interior, even if the title might not suggest this to be the case. The intense swirl of colours which frame three sides of a Rothko-like block of colour have the entrancing effect of pulling the viewer into the void - a black hole in the literal sense.

The overall impression, however, is of serenity: Wragg says of this period that he felt the need to “empty out” his paintings and his emphasis was on stillness and calm - ranging from the freshness of Light Green Interior (Cat 5) to the dark of Black Interior. It’s not often that composure and calm can be considered dramatic, but Wragg achieves that rare feat here.

Gary Wragg - Still Soaring at 70

17 November 2017

Next week, Paisnel Gallery will present a fascinating survey of Gary Wragg’s rich abstract paintings across his fruitful, innovative and ever-evolving career. Still Soaring at 70 will see Wragg (b. 1946, Camberwell) secure his place as one of Britain’s most thoughtful and perceptive artists. As Wragg himself says: “A painting is an exploration: to find something out of nothing; or clarity out of mystery.”

Reflecting the broad sweep of 50 years of artistic endeavour, the paintings in Still Soaring at 70 reveal Wragg’s eclectic inspirations. From Mayan temples to Football Pools coupons, Tai Chi to the very public grief following Princess Diana’s death, he offers a vivid, colourful and kaleidoscopic response to these intriguing starting points.

Grouped into four distinct sections, Still Soaring at 70 begins with Composure & Calm: 1966-75. Here Wragg’s deep love of Henri Matisse is immediately evident, Still Life With Black Curtain (1968) riffing on the French artist’s late domestic paintings and using similarly vibrant, contrasting colours. The prize-winning Salmon Pink Interior from the same year combines these ideas with the bold rectangular forms of Rothko, and is in many ways the embodiment of 1960s abstract expressionism. Meanwhile, the Football Pools motifs in Green And Black Rectangle (1974) and White Green Pinks X’s (1974) hint at a more playful approach.

By the mid-1970s, Wragg had become fascinated by gesture, touch paint and movement, reflected in the second part of the exhibition, Energy & Spiral Movement, 1976-1988. He would, in turn, paint on the floor, vertically and rotate the canvas, a process which he says deeply connected him with the work, “emphasising things that were simultaneously physical and internally felt in ways that for me, only the painting could possibly realise”.

So it’s no surprise that the nuanced Vertical, Horizontal and Concentric (1981) and the ethereal Disc (1982) are directly informed by his interest in Tai Chi Chuan, a martial art which he describes as matching the sensations of hardness and softness he appreciates in painting.

And these triggers from Tai Chi Chuan and the immediate world around Wragg continue in his paintings from 1990-2005, grouped together under the title Chi, Internal/External.Palace Light (1997) sums up this perceptive artist’s sensitive approach; Wragg had paid a visit to Kensington Palace after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and was struck by the spread of flowers wrapped in polythene.

“They shimmered in the evening sunlight: it was visually an amazing, awe-inspiring atmosphere and sight,” he remembers. The painting followed soon after, the dance of the brushwork vibrant and celebratory rather than literal or maudlin.

Wragg’s interest in the interaction between mood and colour continues in Web Structures Loops & Circuits: 2006-2009, which forms the final part of the show. Webzone x Three Into One (2005-6) is a perfect distillation of his broad and current interests, with nods to the fragmentation of data on the Internet, sensations of time and space, and even paving stones in Normandy.

“Painting and drawing is like a magnet that pulls me onto the surface, lock, stock and barrel,” says Wragg. Still Soaring at 70 confirms his work has a magnetic pull all of its own.

On View in November

1 November 2017

Paisnel Gallery is pleased to present a new selection of paintings - and an ambitious contemporary sculptural work - to view for the next three weeks. Covering everything from Alan Davie’s abstract expressionism to Richard Eurich’s meticulously detailed landscapes, the full range of post-war British Art is revealed in these accomplished works.

Terry Frost’s Interior At Quay Street, St Ives (1948) is a fascinating place in which to begin this select survey of the development of British Art in the second half of the 20th century. Quay Street was where Frost lived with his wife when they moved to Cornwall, and his gradual move from figurative work to his status as one of the prime movers of abstract art can be appreciated in this oil, the eye-catching shapes and colours of the tablecloth a hint of what was to come.

Eight years later, Britain - and St Ives - was in the throws of a full-scale abstract boom, with Alan Davie one of its foremost exponents. 1956 was a crucial year for Davie’s work - thanks to the patronage of Rothko and Pollock, his first New York exhibition was a sell out (mainly to major institutions) and Study For The Temple No1 (Red) reveals the spontaneity and vibrancy that made him a major draw on both sides of the Atlantic.

Heading into the 1960s, artists with interest in geometric abstraction, such as Adrian Heath, began to explore the ways in which more organic forms might better express their interests and worldview. In Painting - Black & Yellow (1961), the deep ochres, blacks and smooth curves - something of a theme throughout Heath’s work - are strikingly combined with prominent vertical brushwork: an exuberant painting where hope is momentarily tempered by shadow.

John Copnall once said of his life in the 1960s: "No Beatles, but plenty of bullfighting, flamenco and Rioja!” He lived in Spain and was hugely influenced by prevailing European trends of Art Informel and Pintura Materica, where non-artistic materials were incorporated into the compositions. Copnall was also hugely taken with the light and landscapes of Spain, and all of these concerns come together in Composition with Jeans (1967-8) in which there genuinely is a pair of jeans present in an irreverent yet determinedly structured collage.

Much more straightforward - although no less important - is Richard Eurich’s Snow Shower Over Skyreholme (1973). Eurich’s landscapes are possessed with an unrivaled lyrical realism, although the compositions often have a pleasingly eerie edge to them. So it is with this brooding painting of the deserted Yorkshire Dales, an outstanding example of his later work.

Finally, Leigh Davis brings Paisnel Gallery right up to date with a new bronze titled Grounded Form inspired by the retrieval of a Dornier Bomber from the seabed of Goodwin Sands, off the Kent coastline. Cast in several pieces and then welded together, the sculpture takes on an almost animalistic form and is without question this exciting artist’s most ambitious and satisfying work to date.

Interior at Quay Street, St Ives

Study for the Temple (No 1)

Jeremy Gardiner - Drawn to the Coast

4 October 2017

Showcasing a stunning collection of watercolours that continue his exploration of the dramatic maritime boundaries of south and west England, Drawn To The Coast expands upon the intricately layered and textured abstract landscapes which captured the imagination at his previous Paisnel Gallery show, Pillars Of Light.

Gardiner’s work always thrills with its spirit and sense of place, his understanding of the unique contours of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset underpinning work revelling in geology and history, nature and memory. Each watercolour in Drawn To The Coast has been painstakingly worked upon using two sheets of 640 gram cotton rag , which Gardiner cuts into, paints and engraves - a layering effect which mirrors the artist’s deep interest in the detail of the natural world.

These are powerful, atmospheric expressions of landscapes in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Isle of Wight and Lundy which share the same lineage as the acrylic and jesmonite works on poplar panel. St Ives Rooftops, August, Cornwall conveys the quiet beauty of dusk without ever tripping into sentimentality, while the large foreground of the expansive Early Morning, Anvil Point, Dorset offers an emotive sense of, as Gardiner puts it, “empty desolation”.

“I am trying to harness the sensation of the different seasons by exaggerating shapes, form and colour,” says Gardiner of pieces that began as field sketches and working line drawings and often use architectural shapes to create contrast between man made and organic forms.

Even a seemingly straightforward landscape watercolour - Morning Walk, The Lizard, Cornwall - is imbued with a rare depth and quality emphasized by the artist’s use of premature technique; the surface patterns of agricultural cultivation offering an abstract design of echoing colours, upon which Gardiner has engraved and incised intriguing detail.

“Ever since we were first introduced to Jeremy’s work we’ve been enthralled by his meticulous attention to detail, the sophisticated technique of his paintings and the stories they tell,” says Stephen Paisnel. “Drawn To The Coast is his fifth show here and will delight the wide variety of people who enjoyed his previous exhibitions at Paisnel Gallery as well as serving as a striking introduction for newcomers to his wonderful body of work.”

September Update

4 September 2017

20/21 British Art Fair – September 13th – 17th

Stand 29

Mall Galleries

The Mall

London SW1

St Ives artists Paul Feiler, Alexander Mackenzie and Denis Mitchell take pride of place in the Gallery’s participation at September’s eagerly awaited 20/21 British Art Fair, back after a year’s absence at an exciting new venue at Mall Galleries.

As specialists in 20th century British art, with an emphasis on post-war abstraction and the St Ives movement, we are delighted to be part of the only fair to focus exclusively on Modern and Post-War British art - with founders and organisers Gay Hutson and Angela Wynn promising a feast for collectors.

Paisnel Gallery can certainly deliver on that aim, with Paul Feiler’s compact but important 1954 oil, Florence, Boboli (Gardens) one of the highlights of our collection. It’s often said of the Anglo-German painter that he was at the very heart of the St Ives artistic community and this work, which came directly after the commercial success of Feiler’s first solo show at Redfern Gallery, transposes the thick earthy oils of his early practice to intriguingly abstract European vistas.

Staying with oils, Alexander Mackenzie’s Levant Zawn (1960) is a fine example of his wonderfully resonant, textured and rich abstract style, speaking of the landscapes in Cornwall that he and his contemporaries returned to again and again - the Levant Zawn being a cliff formation north of St Just.

The 20/21 British Art Fair also boasts plenty of remarkable modern British sculpture, and to that end we will be presenting Denis Mitchell’s lithe and graceful bronze Poltesco (1984). At the time of his Newlyn Art Gallery exhibition of 1985 - at which Poltesco featured - the suggestion was that the work was to be admired as a “pure and mystical object created from the religious and aesthetic impulses of the artist” and there is something in this magical form from Barbara Hepworth’s long-time assistant which invites such contemplation.

Also in the Paisnel Gallery inventory are pieces from modern and post-war luminaries such as Robyn Denny, Patrick Heron, Ivon Hitchens, Prunella Clough and Keith Milow. We’d be delighted to talk with you about all of these important artists and their work at this year’s 20/21 British Art Fair.

Please contact the gallery for further details and tickets for the Fair.

Mayfair Art Weekend

30 June 2017

Once a year, the galleries, artists and auction houses of Mayfair come together to celebrate the area’s thriving and vibrant art community. Paisnel Gallery is always delighted to be a part of Mayfair Art Weekend, and July 1st and 2nd will be a unique chance to experience and explore our range of St Ives and Post War British art through talks, events and, of course, the work displayed in the gallery itself.

Throughout the weekend, Stephen Paisnel will lead informal talks about the St Ives and Post War British Art at the gallery, with a special focus on sculpture for the home and garden. Of particular interest will undoubtedly be artwork from St Ives sculptors Denis Mitchell, Paul Mount and John Milne: Mitchell was Barbara Hepworth’s chief assistant between 1949 and 1960, contributing to some of her most important stone and wood carvings. But he also fashioned his own sleek upright bronzes and slate sculptures, including Boleigh, inspired by ancient Cornish standing stones.

We always look to the present and future as well as the past, which at Mayfair Art Weekend will mean a detailed exploration of contemporary sculpture by Richard Fox, Robert Fogell, Robert Erskine and Deborah van der Beek, as well as the chance to preview a forthcoming exhibition of highly detailed watercolours by Jeremy Gardiner.

On Saturday 1st July at 12 noon and 3pm, Gardiner will be at the gallery talking about his forthcoming exhibition, Drawn ToThe Coast, which opens in early October. Featuring watercolours from St Ives in Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, this is a great chance to meet an artist whose work - here in watercolour with jesmonite and acrylic, cut and incised to create a relief structure - has always been intrinsically linked with landscape, and more recently, coastlines.

To encourage people to enjoy Mayfair Art Weekend to its fullest, we have revised opening hours. On June 30th we are open from 10am to 6pm, while on Saturday and Sunday (July 1st and 2nd) the gallery will be welcoming visitors from 10am to 5pm.

Spring Exhibition - 40 Years On

Stephen and Sylvia Paisnel mark 40 years at the heart of the London art market with an interesting new group exhibition reflecting their diverse range of British artists available in the Gallery.

Beginning with William Gear’s typically powerful abstract piece Composition 1947, moving through intriguing work by Alan Davie and John Plumb and ending with a new bronze by Jonathan Clarke, 40 Years On reflects the changes in the art world over the last four decades as well as championing the genuinely exciting artists living and working in the 21st century.

“This exhibition illustrates where we have been, where we are now and where we will be in the future,” explains Stephen Paisnel.

After initially specialising in the social realism of the Newlyn School, the logical next step for Paisnel Gallery was to focus on some of the most important post-war St Ives painters and sculptors. Over the years the Gallery has boasted some of the finest works by Paul Feiler, Terry Frost, Roger Hilton, Denis Mitchell and Patrick Heron, and are delighted to be able to present some of these artists’ work in 40 Years On.

Heron’s Soft Vermilion and Olive In Brown (1961) is a particular highlight, the rich ochres of its background lending this remarkable oil on canvas a distinctly meditative quality.

Paisnel Gallery has thrived as British modernism and abstraction have become increasingly popular. 40 Years On celebrates artists in this field that the gallery has featured and promoted over the years, such as Alan Davie, John Plumb, John Tunnard and Frank Avray Wilson. Trevor Bell’s Red Black and Intensities, a 1959 work inspired by Italian landscapes, is neatly representative of these artists’ shared interest in the immersive power of colour.

“One enduring ethos has been our guiding principle,” says Stephen Paisnel. “To offer a diverse range of British art, both aesthetically and financially, to ensure that no collector is excluded from our commitment to presentation, professionalism and choice.”

That broad remit also means the inclusion of figurative works in 40 Years On, including John Bratby’s famous Red Boots (1954). It was originally purchased by Oscar-nominated director Ronald Neame after Bratby had helped in the production of The Horse’s Mouth, written by and starring Alec Guinness. Aptly, he played an eccentric artist.

Paisnel Gallery’s gradual shift to focus on artists working from the 1980s to the present day is also reflected in this exhibition, with two connected mid-career works from Keith Milow of particular interest. Drawing 89/9/79/D layers oil paint onto lead and copper to stunning effect. Additionally, pioneering pop-artist Eduardo Paolozzi’s Head, 1993 is a portraiture brilliantly subverted, a cubist plaster work both strikingly modern and deeply timeless.

“40 Years On is a wonderful artistic representation of the journey Paisnel Gallery has been on, but it also says much about how dynamic, exciting and progessive British Art has been - and continues to be,” says Stephen Paisnel.

London Art Fair - January 2017

10 January 2017

Paisnel Gallery at London Art Fair

The eagerly anticipated London Art Fair (January 18-22) is always a tremendous opportunity for Paisnel Gallery to exhibit the breadth and quality of our catalogue, revealing work both surprisingly affordable and immediately collectable, exploring Modern Masters and fresh new talent alike.

From artists operating in the immediate aftermath of World War II, through to some stunning examples from the St Ives movement and right up to pieces from 2016, the gallery has gathered some of the best in 20th century and contemporary British art for the genre’s premier fair.

We will be exhibiting in three distinct sections at LAF: St Ives, Post War and Contemporary. Here are some brief highlights of the work on display - for more information and a full list please ask for our London Art Fair Catalogue.

St Ives

Paisnel Gallery has always specialised in work emanating from the famous Cornish coastal town which, from the 1940s onwards, became synonymous with modern and abstract art.

From Trevor Bell’s acclaimed body of work comes Red, Black And Intensities, his 1959 piece which confirmed him at the time as one of Britain’s best young non-figurative painters.

From the same year there are two more fascinating pieces: John Tunnard’s modernist Night Shift revealed him to be a skilled master in gouache, while Alan Davie’s Idea For A Fish reflects a period of great fruitfulness for the free-spirited artist.

Moving forward five years, but retaining Davie’s cheery approach to abstraction, Paisnel Gallery is also delighted to present Terry Frost’s boldly colourful Chevrons For Compton.

Post War

One of the joys of Post War British art is that it’s not limited to a narrow time period or indeed style, and there’s an intriguing comparison to be made with William Gear’s Composition 1947 and John Hoyland’s similarly-titled Composition 1980, both of which have a fluid attitude to shape and abstraction, while using very different colour palettes.

And differences in technique are also marked in the work of John Bratby and Bernard Cohen. Bratby’s still life Red Boots (1954) characterise his “kitchen sink” painting, and if it seems a long way from there to Cohen’s intensely physical abstract work, Style 1 (1963), then that’s the whole point of Post War British Art.

Staying in the 1950s, it’s always a pleasure to be associated with Robyn Denny, and Red Beat 1, Red Beat 2 and Red Beat 3 (1958), named after Beat Generation authors such as Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, are emblematic of the energy and modern mood of the time.

Meanwhile, the gallery’s long relationship with the estate of John Plumb continues with four pieces at the London Art Fair. In the week that Donald Trump is inaugurated as President of the United States, Plumb’s political Homage To John F Kennedy (1963), with its torn American flag, feels as relevant as ever.

Other highlights in the Post War section include two works from neo-romantic artist Graham Sutherland and a number of pieces from abstract expressionist pioneer Frank Avray Wilson. Red Explosive (1960) is aptly named.

Contemporary

Paisnel Gallery also supports the work of contemporary artists, and it’s a great pleasure to introduce four vibrant deconstructed landscapes by Leigh Davis produced last year.

And fresh from his Paisnel Gallery exhibition in autumn 2016, we also have one of the most dramatic pieces from Jeremy Gardiner’s Pillars Of Light series investigating British lighthouses and coastlines. Scarlet Fields, The Lizard Lighthouse, Cornwall (2016) sees semi-abstract landscape painter Gardiner at his layered best.

Paisnel Gallery is at Stand 40 at London Art Fair.

http://www.londonartfair.co.uk/galleries/paisnel-gallery/

John Plumb - Blenheim

John Plumb - Osterley

October View

26 October 2016

Paisnel Gallery is delighted to present two sought-after works from one of 20th century art’s genuine free spirits, Alan Davie.

Davie was as happy painting as he was designing jewellery. His love of jazz and poetry was as crucial to his work as his interest in mysticism and lost civilisations, and all of these concerns come together in Idea for A Fish (1959) and Flag Walk (1974). The fact that the medium in these pieces is so different - Idea For A Fish is an oil on paper, while Flag Walk is a wool pile tapestry - merely confirms how inquisitive, improvisational and inventive Davie was over a long and fruitful career.

Idea for A Fish (1959) is symptomatic of a time when Davie was enjoying immense commercial and critical success - he had just enjoyed his first major retrospective at London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery and was beginning to have a major influence on a young David Hockney. Using the bold colours and shapes which would resurface the following year in one of Davie’s most celebrated paintings, Patrick’s Delight, there’s exhilarating freedom to the composition as the Scot revels in the possibilities of colour.

That same ambition, to explore the boundaries of colour, shape and even art itself, was still apparent 15 years later. A wool pile tapestry inspired by Davie’s visits to the Caribbean, the bold geometric forms on the deep red background of Flag Walk (1974) are a clear nod to the ancient rock carvings found on the island he loved to visit, St Lucia. Absolutely devoid of pretension, it’s a joyful arrangement of recognisably prehistoric shapes, childlike in the very best, intuitive sense.

It’s no surprise to learn that another example of Flag Walk is displayed at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires, chosen by the British Government to represent and explore broadly South American themes through art. It’s Alan Davie’s work in microcosm: unselfish, expressive, unburdened by convention and, literally, visionary.

“Alan Davie is one of our most popular artists, and we’re always delighted by the work that comes to us,” says Stephen Paisnel. “You can really feel the joyous and spontaneous nature of his character in these two pieces - there’s a fantastic exuberance to them.”

Idea for a Fish (1959)

oil on paper laid on board

43 x 53 cm (17 x 21 ins)

Framed size: 64 x 74 cm (25 x 29 ins)

signed and dated 1959

titled verso

Flag Walk (1974)

Wool pile tapestry

208 x 279 cm (82 x 110 ins)

with woven signature

signed & numbered 14 from an edition of 21 (label verso)

Flag Walk

Idea for a Fish

Jeremy Gardiner - Pillars of Light

7 October 2016

Standing in front of one of his favourite paintings in his current Paisnel Gallery exhibition, Pillars of Light, Jeremy Gardiner told some of those gathered around his magisterial work Sunrise, St Ives, Cornwall that there was something incredibly evocative about lighthouses - not just the structures themselves but the ever-changing coastal landscapes of which they are a part. And his powerful depictions of the dramatic south-west coastline have certainly struck a chord: many of his 36 paintings at Paisnel Gallery have now sold.

And as the Pillars of Light exhibition enters its final week, Stephen Paisnel is in no doubt why Gardiner’s show has proved so successful. “It is an astonishing body of work, and as soon as we saw it come together at Paisnel Gallery, we knew that it would cement Jeremy’s position as one of the great ambassadors of contemporary landscape painting,” he says. “The paintings are fascinating, not just in terms of his sophisticated technique, but in the way they explore history, geology and humankind’s struggle with elements.

“I’d urge people to come to the gallery in the final week of the exhibition and experience this engaging work for themselves. There are still some superb works available.”

These include the stunning Sunrise, St Ives, in which the early morning light seems to roll in like a wave over a Cornish town which has become so synonymous with contemporary British art. Further up the north Cornwall coast, Gardiner’s two paintings of Trevose Head, Against The Light and Summer Tide, are tremendous examples of how Gardiner renders the same scene in dramatically opposing ways given the changes in light and mood.

Meanwhile, Autumn Evening, Hawthorn Bush, Anvil Point Lighthouse, Dorset and Light Above The Sea, St Catherine’s Lighthouse, Isle of Wight are wonderfully subtle examples of Gardiner’s commitment to making the lighthouse a part of his paintings rather than the overbearing point of them.

As Jeremy Gardiner says himself: “In all the pictures in Pillars of Light I’m trying to capture just one mood, to convey the experience and atmosphere of being in a landscape at a particular time.”

Pillars of Light is at Paisnel Gallery until Friday 14 October. The gallery is open Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm, with Saturday and late viewings by appointment.

Jeremy Gardiner - Pillars of Light

27 September 2016

A Coastal Walk with Jeremy Gardiner: Exploring Pillars of Light

Our eagerly-awaited Jeremy Gardiner exhibition around the theme of the lighthouse, Pillars of Light, opens tomorrow. For this intriguing show, thirty six paintings of rare power and insight explore the dramatic south-west coastline of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, travelling from the islands of Lundy to Godrevy and on to the Isle of Wight.

In the run-up to the show, we’ve been talking to Jeremy about works from each of the places to which the Bath-based artist travelled for this series. Jeremy is a fascinating artist, and has plenty to say about how the combination of memory, place, geology, architecture and history come together in his evocative paintings.

Our final stop on the journey is the Isle of Wight.

Pale Cliffs, The Needles Lighthouse, Isle of Wight

12 x 24 ins (30.5 x 61 cms)

Cat 34

Above The Ridge, The Needles Lighthouse, Isle of Wight

18 x 24 ins (46 x 61 cms)

Cat 36

The Needles is one of those classic lighthouses with red and white bands, which actually means it’s very difficult to paint without it turning into something cheesy.

So in both these works, the lighthouse is part of the landscape of the painting rather than being its focal point. I chose instead to reflect the red stripes of the lighthouse elsewhere in the painting, particularly in Above The Ridge - so the bands of red become part of the structure of the landscape.

The Needles are an incredible subject and important for me, as the chalk ridge once led all the way to Old Harry Rocks in Dorset. Geologically it’s interesting too, as this ridge used to connect the Isle of Wight to the mainland.

When I can, I like to travel around the coast on the PS Waverley, the last sea-going paddle steamer in the world. I took a trip around the Isle of Wight on the Waverley, and so that’s why Pale Cliffs is painted from the sea.

Jeremy Gardiner - Pillars of Light

26 September 2016

A Coastal Walk with Jeremy Gardiner: Exploring Pillars of Light

Our eagerly-awaited Jeremy Gardiner exhibition around the theme of the lighthouse, Pillars of Light, opens on Wednesday. For this intriguing show, thirty six paintings of rare power and insight explore the dramatic south-west coastline of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, travelling from the islands of Lundy to Godrevy and on to the Isle of Wight.

In the run-up to the show, we’ve been talking to Jeremy about works from each of the places to which the Bath-based artist travelled for this series. Jeremy is a fascinating artist, and has plenty to say about how the combination of memory, place, geology, architecture and history come together in his evocative paintings.

Today we journey to a county and lighthouse very close to his heart: Anvil Point, Dorset.

Autumn Evening, Hawthorn Bush, Anvil Point Lighthouse, Dorset

24 x 48ins (61 x 122 cms)

Cat 31

Turquoise Sea, Anvil Point Lighthouse, Dorset

24 x 36 ins (61 x 91.5 cms)

Cat 32

“Anvil Point is a very short, stumpy lighthouse, only about 12 metres tall, and it has keepers’ cottages next to it, which would have housed three families. You can see a large stone wall, which was for their vegetable gardens.

This lighthouse has a relatively small lens - the original is actually in the Science Museum -and the light from it gives a clear line from Portland Bill in the west, guiding ships away from the three mile reef off Hengistbury Head and into the Solent. So it covers a very large area.

As a child, I’d lie in bed in my grandmother’s house listening to the foghorn. You’d know then that the whole of the coast would be shrouded in thick fog - it was such an evocative sound. The lighthouse was illuminated by a paraffin vapour burner and it was only in the 1960s that it was modernised to an electric light. Until then, the men running that lighthouse would have had to make sure it was constantly on - which was quite dangerous work. So I’ve got a lot of nostalgic memories about Anvil Point: I remember collecting glow-worms in a bottle there, which was like having a 20watt bulb in your hand. Kind of magical.

In Turquoise Sea, the lighthouse has a black background, and walking that stretch of coastline, you get weather systems where the sky suddenly turns a charcoal grey. That’s when features in the landscape really stand out - they’re like a flashbulb going off.

I think that’s one of the reasons artists are drawn to coastal landscapes. They’re never the same - they’re always changing. Depending on the weather or the season, the whole landscape is different because of the light. The atmosphere changes, too, which is why lighthouses are such a fascinating subject.

In all the pictures in Pillars of Light I’m having a shot at capturing just one mood, to convey the experience of being in a landscape at a particular time. But it’s not like a photograph. I’m trying to embed lots of elements in the pictures, which is why they’re layered so much. It’s more like a multiple exposure”.

Jeremy Gardiner - Pillars of Light

23 September 2016

A Coastal Walk with Jeremy Gardiner: Exploring Pillars Of Light

Our eagerly-awaited Jeremy Gardiner exhibition around the theme of the lighthouse, Pillars of Light, opens on Wednesday 28 September. For this intriguing show, thirty six paintings of rare power and insight explore the dramatic south-west coastline of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, travelling from the islands of Lundy to Godrevy and on to the Isle of Wight.

In the run-up to the show, we’ve been talking to Jeremy about works from each of the places to which the Bath-based artist travelled for this series. Jeremy is a fascinating artist, and has plenty to say about how the combination of memory, place, geology, architecture and history come together in his evocative paintings.

We started with his trip to Cornwall, and then travelled east, to Bull Point, Devon. Today, Jeremy boards the MS Oldenburg to Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel, to paint its lighthouses.

Turquoise Harbour, Lundy South Lighthouse

24 x 48ins (61 x 122 cms)

Cat 2

The Colour of the Days, Lundy South Lighthouse

24 x 36 ins (61 x 91.5 cms)

Cat 7

“I enjoyed exploring the north end of Lundy, and there are three paintings in Pillars of Light of Lundy North Lighthouse (Cat 1, 3, 6). The south end also has the quay - and it became a source of real fascination for me. It’s also the first time I’ve got to grips with painting a ship!

If you look at Turquoise Harbour or The Colour of the Days, you can see the MS Oldenburg. This ferry is as important an element to me - and Lundy itself - as the lighthouses, really: the majority of people and all the farming machinery and so on, disembark and leave on this boat. Although you can see a circle on Turquoise Harbour by the lantern room of the lighthouse - that’s a helicopter landing pad.

The first time I tried to go to Lundy I had to cancel the journey, because the weather was against me. So I waited a year before I went back on the boat - that’s why the MS Oldenburg is so important to the painting, because it was so key to my journey and experience, and the keen sense of arrival and departure I felt on the island.

There are actually three lighthouses on Lundy - the first was built in the middle of the island, because they could get away with just one. But the mist was so dense that no ships could see it, so they abandoned that one - which I sat in during my visit, and built one at each end”.

Jeremy Gardiner - Pillars of Light

21 September 2016

A Coastal Walk with Jeremy Gardiner: Exploring Pillars Of Light

Our eagerly-awaited Jeremy Gardiner exhibition around the theme of the lighthouse, Pillars of Light, opens on Wednesday 28 September. In this intriguing show, thirty six paintings of rare power and insight, explore the dramatic south-west coastline of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, travelling from the islands of Lundy to Godrevy and on to the Isle of Wight.

In the build up to the show, we’ve been talking to Jeremy about works from each of the counties to which the Bath-based artist travelled. Jeremy is a fascinating artist, and has plenty to say about how the combination of memory, place, geology, architecture and history come together in his evocative paintings.

We started on Monday with his trip to Cornwall, and today we move further east, to Bull Point in North Devon.

Summertime, Bull Point Lighthouse, Devon

18 x 24 ins (46 x 61 cms)

Cat 10

"Anyone familiar with this part of the world might look at this painting and think “hang on, how did he put his easel up in the middle of the ocean?” But I was actually on my way to Lundy to paint its lighthouses and I made some drawings on the MS Oldenburg ferry from Ilfracombe.

Bull Point is a squat, modern lighthouse rather than a quintessentially romantic Victorian edifice - it was built in 1974 after the headland on which the original lighthouse stood subsided. But in terms of being a minimal intrusion in the geology of the landscape, perched on a clifftop, I really enjoyed it as a subject.

Everyone’s familiar with those cheesy pictures of lighthouses where beams of light arc across the ocean - incidentally, you only ever see that phenomenon when there’s a mist. I never wanted to be so overt, but I hint at the beams of projected light all the time through the shapes in the paintings.

The right hand side of Summertime has an expanse of slate-like black shapes: at Bull Point, the ridge of land that runs underneath the lighthouse is Morte Slate Rocks. Morte deriving from death. And when you look at these rocks from the land side, they’re like grey shards sticking up like knives into the air. If they’re wet, they have this incredible silver sheen to them. It’s a terrifying thing to look at, and you start to realise why they built the lighthouse there.

That’s what I like about this painting: there’s this notion of a lovely summer’s day with the delicate rose pinks and oranges, but it’s juxtaposed with this very dangerous geological formation, hinted at in the textures and shapes.

Jeremy Gardiner - Pillars of Light

19 September 2016

A Coastal Walk with Jeremy Gardiner: Exploring Pillars Of Light

Our eagerly-awaited Jeremy Gardiner exhibition around the theme of the lighthouse, Pillars of Light, opens on Wednesday 28 September. In this intriguing show, thirty six paintings of rare power and insight, explore the dramatic south-west coastline of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, travelling from the islands of Lundy to Godrevy and on to the Isle of Wight.

In the run-up to the show, we’ll be talking to Jeremy about works from each of the counties to which the Bath-based artist travelled for this series. Jeremy is a fascinating artist, and has plenty to say about how the combination of memory, place, geology, architecture and history come together in his evocative paintings.

We start with his trip to Cornwall, and perhaps aptly given its artistic heritage, St.Ives.

Cat 18 Sunrise, St Ives, Cornwall

24 x 48ins (61 x 122 cms)

Cat 17 Winter Morning, St Ives Harbour, Cornwall

24 x 36 ins (61 x 91.5 cms)

“Whenever we go down to Cornwall, we stay in a little B&B in St Ives, and these two pictures are the view from the window of its tiny little top floor room. We get up really early when we’re down there, and although the sunrise is dramatised in this painting, in the morning the light does unfold in a quite wonderful way across the rooftops.

Sunrise is a large painting which I hope works on two levels. At a distance you get this incredible blast of morning light, rolling in like a wave and casting its shadows. And then when you stand in front of the picture you can focus on the tiny details, like the windows in St Ives church. Right at the front of the picture you have net curtains being drawn - the lights have gone on in the house.

That’s what’s fascinating about the view and what attracted other artists in the past, such as Ben Nicolson, Peter Lanyon and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, to draw it. There’s this incredible avalanche of shapes, the expanse of sea, and in my paintings the two tiny lighthouses on Seaton’s Pier and Godrevy Island, separated from the architecture of the town.

Although lighthouses are obviously important to this exhibition, they’re a very minimal presence in these paintings. It’s actually quite difficult to spot Godrevy: it’s just a white speck sitting on the island. But actually, what made me interested in lighthouses in the first place were some paintings I did a few years ago where lighthouses seemed to show up without me really looking at them: we think of lighthouses as huge, dominant structures but they can also be discreet shapes in a wide landscape”.

Summer Exhibition - Nine by Three

28 July 2016

For this summer’s exhibition we are showcasing nine works by each of three contemporary artists closely involved with the gallery.

On view from Thursday 28 July - Thursday 11 August

Leigh Davis presents evocative landscapes inspired by the Isles of Scilly, the Gower Peninsula and rural Shropshire. His progression through ceramics and silver and then painting show a full understanding of form and colour.

Tim Woolcock has already enjoyed a highly successful career exhibiting at the Russell Gallery, London and Jorgensen Fine Art in Dublin. His painting pursues two distinct elements; the pure geometric compositions referencing Constructivism and the more gritty and weathered surfaces of his urban series.

Richard Fox continues his tradition of exploring the interaction between structure and space, producing sculptures of elegance and poise. The two mediums of wood and bronze each present a different perspective of density versus delicacy.

Browns London Art Weekend 2nd and 3rd July

2 July 2016

2nd and 3rd July

Jeremy Gardiner – Preview of our forthcoming exhibition of this contemporary artist’s work centred around the theme of lighthouses. The artist has chosen sixteen lighthouses in the counties of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset together with the Isle of Wight, Lundy Island and Godrevy. On view will be a group of the framed paintings from the exhibition together with a very interesting 16 minute documentary film, which shows the landscapes and the artist at work.

Pillars of Light(film) and talk by Jeremy Gardiner together with preview of his forthcoming exhibition: Saturday 2nd July at 12 noon and 3pm.

John Plumb – Following the success of the John Plumb Retrospective Exhibition at our gallery in June 2015, we have chosen nine Colour Field paintings from 1966 to illustrate this remarkable artist’s capability with saturated hue. The seemingly invariant surfaces are actually very complex and express a yearning for transcendence and the illusion of infinity. Emotionally charged and possessing an almost Zen-like purity, these paintings reference the movement that included international artists such as Rothko and Barnet Newman (with whom Plumb exhibited) and British contemporaries, William Turnbull and John Hoyland.

Spring Exhibition

24 March 2016

St Ives and Post War - Exhibiton 20th - 30th April

Our Spring Exhibition, aims to present an overview of a wide-ranging and diverse body of work. Roger Hilton, Alexander Mackenzie, Terry Frost and John Copnall admirably reflect the process of parallel development, with Europe and America displaying greater emphasis on the physical properties of paint. Artists who are quintessentially British and still invested with a charming sense of insularity, are Billie Waters, Bryan Pearce and Alan Lowndes.

Stalwarts from the Paisnel Gallery inventory are also well represented. John Tunnard for his continuing pre-occupation with Surrealism and, more recently, celestial overtones, Frank Avray Wilson with a very early example of his Taschiste interpretation, and Martin Bradley with his mystical and poetic imagery.

Minimal and pure paintings by Paul Feiler, John Plumb and Arthur Jackson present contrast to the broad and gestural brushwork of Ivon Hitchens and William Crozier, whilst Graham Sutherland’s profound composition provides a challenging alternative.

Sculptural form is expressed in bronzes and carvings principally by the St Ives- orientated artists Robert Adams, John Milne and Denis Mitchell, with their interpretations of geological or cultural inspirations. Bernard Meadows brings an analysis of the human condition, whilst Bertram Eaton and Brian Willsher simply celebrate the joy of working with natural materials to produce objects of beauty.

20th Century British Art: Autumn 2015

4 November 2015

Paisnel Gallery's new exhibition for autumn 2015 explores a remarkable series of paintings and sculpture from some of the 20th century's most popular British artists. Featuring a broad range of work, from a forward-thinking watercolour by John Piper to a pivotal piece in the career of Bryan Wynter and a dynamic bronze by sculptor Denis Mitchell, 20th Century British Art: Autumn 2015 is an eclectic, varied and accessible collection.

Starting with Peter Kinley's evocative early work from 1953, Vertical Landscape Yellow And Red, this exhibition tells the story of how Britain's art scene rapidly became an intriguing and innovative force. John Piper's Portholland, Cornwall (1955) highlights his informal take on the coastal hamlets of the South West and is an interesting development in his career.

By the following year, William Gear was also making radical changes to the intensely coloured works that had made him one of the finest post-war abstract artists. Structure Element (1956) is a key staging post in his move towards more refined, tonal canvasses.

The 1950s work ends with one of the outstanding pieces in this autumn show: Alan Davie's joyous My Next Sold Will Be In Blue (1959). The title alone sums up his exuberant approach to life (the background is indeed blue) and this is a piece which reflects his status "among the major figures in the art of our times" (The Tate).

The gallery's specialization in work from the St Ives school is also reflected in a colourful and exuberant figurative piece by Bryan Wynter (Guitar II, 1964). Elsewhere, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's Garden (1970) and Terry Frost's celebratory later work, Spiral (1996) underline the incredible creativity emanating from this small corner of Cornwall.

20th Century British Art: Autumn 2015 has a significant emphasis on sculpture too, and Paisnel Gallery is particularly pleased to present Leon Underwood's bronze Water Rhythm - Variation (1966). Even in his mid seventies, when this bronze was cast, Underwood still retained his inquisitive passion for the human form, rhythm and movement.

Meanwhile, Denis Mitchell's bronze, Endoc (1977), is a distinctive, dynamic example of the St Ives artist's work, the quasi mechanical form still achieving a sense of purity and calm.

With 30 works to suit a wide variety of tastes, 20th Century British Art: Autumn 2015 at Paisnel Gallery is a wonderful reminder of the breadth of creative endeavour during a fine time for British art.

Gardiner In Summer

17 July 2015

Paisnel Gallery is delighted to present its latest collection of works from the renowned contemporary British artist Jeremy Gardiner. Featuring pieces from across three decades that have made him one of our most fascinating and singular artists, Gardiner In Summer confirms his position at the very forefront of landscape painting in the United Kingdom.

Born in Purbeck, Dorset, in 1957, Gardiner's twin influences - the modernist 20th century artist John Tunnard and the Jurassic Coast - have characterised his career. Gardiner's intricate and inventive evocations of the geology of landscape through painting and printmaking is explored in Gardiner In Summer through work that hints at the tension between man and nature. In 1998's Ballard Point No.5, the expansive sea and sky of Dorset is painted from the window of a former studio - now a holiday let - in Swanage. The most recent work, Pinnacle And Haystack, Summer (2014), returns there, as Gardiner represents - via acrylic and jesmonite on paper - the chalk stacks and collapsed caves of the coastline he grew up exploring.

Through found objects, painstaking technique and a combination of the abstract and the representative, Gardiner's real achievement is to produce work that feels as if it is hewn directly from the landscape that he loves so much. The fractured quality of Winspit, Spring (2014), for example, is a reflection of one of the last coastal quarries to close in the 1960s.

Gardiner's interests extend far wider than merely Dorset, however. His study of a waterfall in Angletarn Beck, Cumbria (2011), has a dramatically fluid feel, while the coppery shards of The Crowns, Botallack (2010) reflect the Cornish mining industry.

Following his acclaimed solo show at Victoria Gallery, Bath, this year - at which international art magazine Apollo heralded Jeremy Gardiner as displaying "a remarkable consistency of vision" - Paisnel Gallery's Gardiner In Summer underlines such talent and commitment to contemporary landscape painting.

This exhibition also acts as a trailblazer for another show Gardiner is currently working on, which we're excited to announce will be held at Paisnel Gallery in May 2016. Concentrating on the lighthouses of the south west of England, it will be another exploration of the elemental collision between nature and humanity - just the kind of study which has made Jeremy Gardiner such an intriguing artist.

The Five Phases of John Plumb

8 June 2015

The John Plumb exhibition opens at Paisnel Gallery on Wednesday. In the build up to the first retrospective of this incredible artist, we've been taking a work from his extensive catalogue which best represents his thought processes and interests over a 50-year career. We started in the 1950s, with Painting 1957, and last week we moved into the 1960s, as Plumb made his name with a series of outstanding large scale colourfields. We end our survey of his career with the early 1990s work which signalled a hugely encouraging return to prominence: the Hydrastructures series.

Look at the huge scope, ambition and energy of Blue Up Green Down I, and it's barely possible to believe that it's the product of an artist who was, by the early 1990s, suffering from an alarming deterioration in his sight. The colour management and dedication to abstraction and expression in the Hydrastructures series might have come from an artist half Plumb's 65 years.

But although Blue Up Green Down I was determinedly abstract, it's starting point was very much Plumb's immediate environment. He'd moved to Shepperton in Surrey, and his studio sat alongside the River Ash. With that in mind, it's possible to see the Hydrastructures series - the name itself alluding to the Greek word for water - as river landscapes. As Frank Whitford puts it in the exhibition catalogue, "lazy squiggles become reflections on the water or the eddies in a stream. Fat, curving twists of colour become trees bending over a riverbank."

Forty years on from Plumb's very first exhibition in the late 1950s, the Tate acquired one of the Hydrastructures paintings from the 1990s, bookending a quite incredible career. It would be a fitting recognition of what John Plumb had achieved in the realm of abstract art over many decades.

The Five Phases of John Plumb

5 June 2015

It's just five days until the John Plumb exhibition opens at Paisnel Gallery on June 10. In the build up to the first retrospective of this incredible artist, we've been taking a work from his extensive catalogue which best represents his thought processes and interests over a 50-year career. We started in the 1950s, with Painting 1957, and earlier this week we moved into the early 1960s, as Plumb began to use tape in his work. On Wednesday we looked at the historically important Homage To John F Kennedy, and today it's the turn of the series which would, for many, characterise John Plumb: his large colourfields.

Say "John Plumb" to anyone with an interest in 20th Century abstract art and they're almost certain to recall the series of large canvasses he began painting in the mid-1960s. Often simply a single field of colour embellished with thin bands of acrylic emulsion around the edges, in 1967 Plumb explained these effortlessly precise works as a result of being "concerned with liberating colour as an emotional factor". They remain some of his finest, most recognisable and most striking works.

Step back, and there is an emotional pull to a seemingly simple painting such as White. It conveys presence and atmosphere and yet has a Zen-like, ethereal calm. On closer inspection, however, this isn't just a plain white canvas with the tiniest of blue-green borders. It's all surface texture and modulation - the major colour was always applied with a brush - and as Frank Whitford wrote in our exhibition catalogue, "the slight variation in thickness and textures contribute to the expression of that colour's qualities."

Undeniably, White is the nearest Plumb came to the similar work of his acquaintance Rothko, but there was never any suggestion of plagiarism. Instead, Plumb and Rothko were contemporaries with similar interests, working on large scale paintings that explored the seductive power and magic of colour.

The Five Phases of John Plumb

3 June 2015

It's exactly a week until the John Plumb exhibition opens at Paisnel Gallery on June 10. In the build up to the first retrospective of this incredible artist, we've been taking a work from his extensive catalogue which best represents his thought processes and interests over a 50-year career. We started in the 1950s, with Painting 1957, and earlier this week we moved into the early 1960s, as Plumb began to use tape in his work. Today we look at his landmark, graphical comment on US society in 1963: Homage To John F Kennedy.

Plumb had always admired art from America, and despite not visiting the country until 1966, its allure began to make its presence felt in his work years before that. This was most obvious in Homage To John F Kennedy, where Plumb's interests in thick, geometric forms segued intriguingly with the flag of the United States.

In the 1960s, Plumb's work was often devoid of obvious meaning - which is part of its appeal. But Homage To John F Kennedy does encourage thoughtful interpretation. 1963 was the year Kennedy was assassinated, and the addition of the iconic stars amid the stripes (there is another work in this series, The Crossing, without the stars) adds an extra poignancy and historical importance.

Indeed, this fascinating piece is readable on several levels, the incomplete central circle perhaps mirroring the tear in US society as it battled to understand the murder of its President. The sober colours only add to the sense of mourning - this outstanding work remains a quiet masterpiece.

The Five Phases of John Plumb

2 June 2015

It's just over a week until the John Plumb exhibition opens at Paisnel Gallery on June 10. In the build up to the first retrospective of this incredible artist, we've been taking a work from his extensive catalogue which best represents his thought processes and interests over a 50-year career. We started in the 1950s, with Painting 1957, and today we move into the early 1960s, as Plumb begins to make quite a name for himself on the London art scene.

In the early 1960s, John Plumb began to use tape in his work, laying vinyl strips on board to create geometric, angular shapes of smooth, flat colour. Today, it's easy to compare these works with that of Piet Mondrian, but Plumb was unaware of most of the Dutch artist's oeuvre until some time after.

The fact that Plumb was working in partial ignorance of Mondrian, but producing work of comparable quality says much about his talent. With contemporaries such as Robyn Denny also hitting the headlines for similar work, the art scene in London - of which Plumb was an important part - was hugely exciting. Multimillionaire art collector EJ Power not only supported Plumb, he literally supplied enough tape for a lifetime, determined to foster the right environment for Plumb to thrive alongside the likes of William Turnbull, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.

Given that the 1960s became such a creatively important decade, it was no surprise that the influence and reputation of such artists would be felt for years to come. Edgehill, one of Plumb's tape compositions from this period, is in The Tate collection (purchased for them by EJ Power), but Blenheim is by far the best example taken from this part of his career. It has action, but remains calmly, austerely beautiful. Blenheim reveals an artist in full command of his technique and precise skills.

The Five Phases of John Plumb

27 May 2015

It's two weeks until the John Plumb exhibition opens at Paisnel Gallery on June 10. In the build up to the first retrospective of this incredible artist, we'll be taking a work from his extensive catalogue which best represents his thought processes and interests over a 50-year career. We start in the 1950s, with Painting 195.

By 1957, Plumb had graduated from - and was teaching part time at - the Central School of Art and Design. He also enjoyed his first solo exhibitions in London at Gallery One and New Vision Centre. This painting, indeed, is inscribed with NVC, and it played a starring role in the latter show.

It's obvious why. Plumb had become increasingly interested in the French Tachism movement, where colour was applied haphazardly to canvas in an echo of American painters such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Plumb's own investigations into this intuitive painting style led to a fascinating series of oils on board which were rich in colour, brushwork and expression.

Look closely, and the mark-making on the board exemplifies the principles of Tachism, the mark-making a wonder to behold in terms of texture and application.

Painting 1957 also reveals just how quickly Plumb was developing. The previous work in the catalogue is a much more figurative piece from 1955, Basement Window with Chair. Two years on, and Plumb has moved into the abstract realm with gusto.

At the gallery, people often tell us that they might not know what a particular piece of abstract art means, but they love it nonetheless. Plumb's Painting 1957 is very much in that category, a piece which doesn't 'say' anything other than how joyful it is to put paint on canvas.

What Painting 1957 offers is an emotive exchange between an artist and the viewer - a state of affairs Plumb repeated time and time again throughout his career.